undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Technical SEO
  4. Should we move our documentation off subdomain?

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Should we move our documentation off subdomain?

Technical SEO
5
6
1.3k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • schof
    schof last edited by Apr 7, 2013, 4:55 PM

    Background:

    We have a popular open source e-commerce platform at http://spreecommerce.com.  Right now the documentation is on http://guides.spreecommerce.com.  We have "edge" documentation (for stuff that's not yet released) on http://edgeguides.spreecommerce.com but since it's largely duplicative we've told google not to index any of the edge stuff (via robots.txt).

    Question:

    Should we consider moving the guides under the main website under /docs or something like this?  There's a ton of great content that people often read to learn more about the platform.  Seems like we might be diluting our juice a bit to have it on a separate domain.  WDYT?

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • NitinRGoyal
      NitinRGoyal last edited by Apr 8, 2013, 4:37 AM Apr 8, 2013, 4:37 AM

      IMO it is more about ease of use for the end user and less about SEO. If you have a good help sub-domain, it will automatically redirect users to the product site.

      Still If I had to make a decision, I would have compared metrics like pages/visit, time on site, bounce rate of help site and main site. If help metrics are better than the main site, adding content to main will add value else it will deplete value. Also if it is only one product, it makes sense to have help within main site bur for multiple products, you should be better off with sub domains (product wise and not docs vs main).

      Please see and decide what is best for your users first, keeping SEO at second priority. Hope it helps.

      • Nitin
      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • danatanseo
        danatanseo @retailgeek last edited by Apr 7, 2013, 9:09 PM Apr 7, 2013, 9:09 PM

        I really like Jason's response and I watched the video. Still, from sheer gut instinct, I would move those docs to the main domain. Call me crazy, it's just seems like the right thing to do.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • retailgeek
          retailgeek last edited by Apr 7, 2013, 8:57 PM Apr 7, 2013, 8:55 PM

          The debate about subdomains vs. subdirectories has been going on for a long time.  You have to be careful about reading old stuff, because the best answer has changed over time based on changes to search algorithms.

          I.E.  There was a time when "link-juice" was treated separately on each sub-domain, so subdomains could dilute your effort.  There was also an era, when Google would allow a max of two results per sub-domain on a SERP, and so people would use multiple sub-domains to get the potential for more links on a SERP.

          At the moment, they appear to be roughly equivalent   And so the decision usually comes down to other convenience issues rather than SEO benefit   In your case, since you're already on a sub-domain I probably wouldn't bother to move them and do all the re-directs, ect...

          I'm basing this advice, largely on Matt Cutts video answer here:

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_MswMYk05tk

          watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_MswMYk05tk

          danatanseo 1 Reply Last reply Apr 7, 2013, 9:09 PM Reply Quote 2
          • AubbiefromAubenRealty
            AubbiefromAubenRealty last edited by Apr 7, 2013, 8:25 PM Apr 7, 2013, 8:24 PM

            Yea, Sean

            I agree that you should move it under the main website. I am not an expert at this but I can definitely see how it can potentially dilute your juice from the main website. It almost seems like it should be on the resources page. I see how you guys have " Showcase| Case Studies| Hosting| ..." I would stick it between " Case Studies" and " Hosting."

            What was the rationale behind putting it on a different domain?

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • danatanseo
              danatanseo last edited by Apr 7, 2013, 8:10 PM Apr 7, 2013, 8:10 PM

              Hi Sean,

              My gut reaction is "Heck Yes!" I would move the documentation, but perhaps, if you can convert it to .pdf file types,  so you can embed a link back to your relevant page or main website from inside the document. This will also keep a link in the document if someone decides to share it off site somewhere, making for some handy links back to your site.

              Interested to know what others think!

              Dana

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • 1 / 1
              1 out of 6
              • First post
                1/6
                Last post

              Got a burning SEO question?

              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


              Start my free trial


              Browse Questions

              Explore more categories

              • Moz Tools

                Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

              • SEO Tactics

                Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

              • Community

                Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

              • Digital Marketing

                Chat about tactics outside of SEO

              • Research & Trends

                Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

              • Support

                Connect on product support and feature requests.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • ahmadmdahshan

                Missing Canonical Tag for a PDF document

                canonical

                Error: Missing Canonical Tag
                But URL is not a webpage it is a PDF document, is this fixable?

                Technical SEO | Oct 4, 2023, 7:54 PM | ahmadmdahshan
                0
              • Rezza

                Migrating to new subdomain with new site and new content.

                Our marketing department has decided that a new site with new content is needed to launch new products and support our existing ones. We cannot use the same subdomain(www = old subdomain  and ww1 = new subdomain)as there is a technically clash between the windows server currently used, and the lamp stack required to run the new wordpress based CMS and site. We also have an aging piece of SAAS software on the www domain which is makes moving it to it's own subdomain far too risky. 301's have been floated as a way of managing the transition. I'm not too keen on that idea due to the double effect of new subdomain and content, and the SEO impact it might have. I've suggested uploading the new site to the new subdomain while leaving the old site in place. Then gradually migrating sections over before turning parts of the old site off and using a 301 at that point to finalise the move. The old site would inform user's there is a new version and it would then convert them to the new site(along with a cookie to auto redirect them in future.) while still leaving the old content in place for existing search traffic, bookmarks and visitors via static URLs. Before turning off sections on the old site we would create rel canonicals to redirect to the new pages based on a a mapped set of URLs(this in itself concerns me as the rel canonical is essentially linking to different content). Would be grateful for any advice on whether this strategy is flawed or whether another strategy might be more suitable?

                Technical SEO | Jun 29, 2015, 6:06 PM | Rezza
                0
              • Whittie

                Robots.txt on subdomains

                Hi guys! I keep reading conflicting information on this and it's left me a little unsure. Am I right in thinking that a website with a subdomain of shop.sitetitle.com will share the same robots.txt file as the root domain?

                Technical SEO | Feb 19, 2015, 2:59 PM | Whittie
                0
              • jamesm5i

                "Fourth-level" subdomains. Any negative impact compared with regular "third-level" subdomains?

                Hey moz New client has a site that uses: subdomains ("third-level" stuff like location.business.com) and; "fourth-level" subdomains (location.parent.business.com) Are these fourth-level addresses at risk of being treated differently than the other subdomains? Screaming Frog, for example, doesn't return these fourth-level addresses when doing a crawl for business.com except in the External tab. But maybe I'm just configuring the crawls incorrectly. These addresses rank, but I'm worried that we're losing some link juice along the way. Any thoughts would be appreciated!

                Technical SEO | Jul 18, 2013, 3:41 PM | jamesm5i
                0
              • Prospector-Plastics

                Subdomain vs Main Domain Penalties

                We have a client who's main root.com domain is currently penalized by Google, but the subdomain.root.com is appearing very well. We're stumped - any ideas why?

                Technical SEO | Mar 28, 2013, 12:46 PM | Prospector-Plastics
                0
              • vernonmack

                Blogs are best when hosted on domain, subdomain, or...?

                I’ve heard the it is a best practice to host your blog within your site. I’ve also heard it’s best to put it on a subdomain.  What do you believe is the best home for your blog and why?

                Technical SEO | May 10, 2012, 2:20 AM | vernonmack
                0
              • GriffinHansen

                What are the pros and cons of moving one site onto a subdomain of another site?

                Two sites. One has weaker sales. What would the benefits and problems for SEO of moving the weak site from its own domain to a subdomain of the stronger site?

                Technical SEO | Apr 14, 2011, 6:01 PM | GriffinHansen
                0
              • gallantc

                Starting a new product, should we use new domain or subdomain

                I'm working with a company that has a high page rank on it's main domain and is looking to launch a new business / product offering.  They are evaluating either creating a subdomain or launching a brand new domain.  In either case, their current site will link contextually to the new site.  Is there one method that would be better for SEO than the other? The new business / product is related to the main offering, but may appeal to different / new customers.  The new business / product does need it's own homepage and will have a different conversion funnel than the existing business.

                Technical SEO | Aug 30, 2011, 6:21 PM | gallantc
                0

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.